1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for multicomputer data transferring. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for e-mail message processing.
2. Description of Related Art
A significant portion of a typical work day for many white-collar employees centers around communication in various forms, e.g., meetings, phone calls, and various forms of electronic messaging, such as e-mail and instant messages. In some cases, a corporation may be able to identify that more frequent use of electronic communications has increased the productivity of the overall corporation, and the same may be true for certain employees.
However, in some cases, an employee can demonstrate that his or her productivity suffers in proportion to the number of e-mail messages that he or she receives. In general, though, the amount of communication that is accomplished by e-mail messages continues to increase. This situation is compounded by the ease with which employees are able to communicate with each other by e-mail messages. E-mail messages are easily sent to a recipient, and e-mail messages are easily queued in anticipation of a response. Hence, the volume of e-mail is problematic in some cases because the task of responding to e-mail messages consumes an increasingly larger portion of a typical information worker's day. Moreover, the act of responding to e-mail messages can become monotonous in addition to time-consuming, which may cause an employee to become careless in responding to important e-mail messages. Potential errors may include incorrect information within a response or undue delay by neglecting to respond to an important e-mail message. As a result, business processes may be effected in uncertain ways.
Productivity-enhancing features have been added to e-mail applications to assist workers in handling the larger workload that is represented by the larger volume of e-mail. Prior art solutions have provided the ability to mark an e-mail message with a priority flag that indicates a normal priority, a high priority, or a highest priority, thereby allowing an employee to identify and respond to the most important e-mail messages from the sender's perspective. Other prior art solutions have provided the ability to generate return receipts to the sender when the sender's e-mail message is received at its intended destination or when the recipient opens the e-mail message, thereby providing an acknowledgment that a particular message has been received and/or opened.
However, these solutions allow a recipient to determine how quickly the recipient will respond to an incoming e-mail message. For example, a recipient may open an e-mail message that is flagged as highest priority and then decide that the e-mail message does not represent an important matter, after which the recipient postpones the generation of a response. Many business processes are time-critical, though, and there is a need to provide features in e-mail applications that reduce the amount of time between the receipt of an important e-mail message by a recipient and the generation of a response to that e-mail message by the recipient.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide productivity-enhancing features within e-mail applications for the handling of email messages so that important messages receive the appropriate attention from the recipient of an e-mail message.